Prequel

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A work that is produced after one installment but chronologically set prior to it.

Maybe the last entry in the series left no room for a sequel. Maybe the writers just want to explore the backstory. Either way, it's time for a Prequel, a Portmanteau of "Previous" and "Sequel": a sequel that is set chronologically before the previous work. On one hand, this allows for excellent foreshadowing. On the other, the prequel often heavily Ret Cons the backstory, it can have consequences that should have been mentioned in the original story, and it's difficult to keep up the tension when the audience knows how it ends.

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For example, in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, various characters interact with others they would meet again in the original Star Wars trilogy, but in that film they show no evidence of recognizing them. Because the second Indiana Jones film was a prequel, audiences knew he would survive, and that he wouldn't get to keep the girl.

TV Series usually wrap a prequel in a Whole Episode Flashback. A movie may get a prequel TV series. Sometimes writers will squeeze a story between existing entries in a series, making it both a sequel and a prequel. Prequels are also an easy way to make use of an Expansion Pack World and introduce new conflicts without undermining the resolution of the previous work by introducing an even more ultimate evil. Occasionally said ultimate evil can get their own prequel with a Start of Darkness.

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One issue with prequels in electronic media is that if they come out years after the original, you have the problem of technology in Real Life advancing to the point that special effects, graphics, etc. make the prequel look more advanced than the original, which ends up with a Cosmetically Advanced Prequel. Depending on the series, and the circumstances surrounding it, this can be overlooked, or jarring.

Remember that a work must still come out after its related installment to be considered a prequel; previous installments do not qualify for the definition. For example, Rocky is not a prequel to Rocky II, because Rocky II was both produced and set after the first.

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Examples:

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Anime & Manga

On its seventh volume, Arachnid introduces an assassin named Imomushi who has her own goal in the story's battle royale. Shortly after, however, she's anticlimatically knocked off the plot and isn't seen again. A spinoff named Caterpillar was then published alongside the main story, showing Imomushi on an adventure of her own a year earlier. After 93 chapters, the story catches up to Arachnid and becomes a P.O.V. Sequel.

Saiyuki Gaiden is the story of the main four's godly past lives (and in Goku's case, forcibly forgotten childhood). The author acknowledged in the first volume that the ending is obvious for anyone familiar with the main series, and used it to heighten the tension: the audience knew from the very first page that Konzen, Kenren and Tenpou are going to die, and that Goku will lose his memory and spend 500 years imprisoned. What we don't know is how, or when.

Spiral: Alive is the prequel to Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna, and mostly focuses on the serial murder of several Blade Children whose existence was missed by the Organization, and what the killer hopes to gain, involving Kiyotaka, Kousuke, Ryoko, Rio, and more.

Codename: Sailor V occupies the strange definition of being both a prequel, and the source, of Sailor Moon. This is because, though Sailor V came first; most of Sailor Moon came before Sailor V which ran sporadically and wrapped up after Sailor Moon ended.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing had a manga-only prequel named Episode Zero that showed formative moments from the early lives of the Gundam Pilots and Relena. The stories actually began life as a pair of flashback episodes that had to be cut when scheduling complications arose, and have the benefit of being penned by the show's head writer.

Fist of the Blue Sky is a distant prequel to Fist of the North Star, set in pre-World War II Asia. It doesn't have much to do with North Star, but stars Ryuken's elder brother and predecessor Kasumi Kenshiro, whom the Kenshiro from North Star was named after. The more recent spinoffs of Fist of the North Star are standard prequels and side-stories though, centering around characters from the original series (the 25th anniversary movie Hokuto no Ken Zero is a prequel set a year before the events of the original manga).

Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas tells the story of the previous Holy War between Hades and Athena, taking place 250 years before the original series.

Around the time the Ginga Densetsu Weed anime was made, a manga was created called Ginga Densetsu Riki, the prequel to the 1980s manga and anime Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin. This tells about Riki when he was a puppy and encounters his father Shiro.

Legend of Galactic Heroes has two Gaiden series totalling 52 episodes which basically revealed the early military careers of Reinhard von Lohengramm and Yang Wen-li before the start of the series proper.

Handa-kun is a gag-comedy prequel to Barakamon that that features the main character's life in high school six years earlier.

Tezuka works tend to get some dubiously official prequels in order to explain how the main characters ended up the way they did. Young Black Jack fills in the holes of Dr. Black Jack's time in the Japanese medical field and how he came to abandon it, and Atom: The Beginning shows Professor Ochanomizu and Dr. Tenma as young scientists on the path to creating the technology that would one day help create Astro Boy.

Like Sailor V, High Speed! turned into a strange hybrid of source material and prequel for Free! over its run. The first book came out well before its sequel anime, but the second was released before Eternal Summer and adapted afterwards as a prequel film.

Many comic book prequels explain how things are different after a Retcon. For example, the Superman: Birthright miniseries by Mark Waid shows young Clark Kent's life in a different way than the Man of Steel miniseries by John Byrne had; the latter was canon until the former came out.

The ElfQuest comics had a number of prequels over the years, most notably Bearclaw. The title character was the father of Cutter, the hero of the original series. The Bearclaw series sets up many of the events which occurred before the main story began, and in particular explains the implacable enmity between the human and elf tribes which led to the humans burning the elves out of their forest home at the beginning of Elfquest #1.

"The Razor's Edge". Text story made available on the Transformers fan club website.

The Smurfs' limited-edition 50th anniversary story "The Flute Smurfers" is a prequel to the Johan and Peewit story "The Smurfs And The Magic Flute", telling what the magic flute was originally made for. It should be noted, however, that the Smurf Forest in the prequel resembles the flourishing Sugar Bowl forest of the Smurf comic book series more than it does the sparse rock-filled forest of the Johan And Peewit story that chronologically follows it.

Arkham Asylum: Living Hell is one. While published in the time frame between "Officer Down" and "Face the Face", it takes place before it (with a footnote even stating that it happened before Batman: No Man's Land) and features Jim Gordon, not Michael Akins, as police commissioner yelling at a doctor for releasing an inmate (which given both the "doctor" and the inmate are question are serial killers, with the former even stealing the real doctor's identity, one can't blame him) and Harvey Bullock as a police detective.

Knights of the Old Republic is an interesting example. Pitched and sold as a prequel to Knights of the Old Republic video game, the series avoids many typical prequel pitfalls such as Foregone Conclusion, Saved by Canon and having to feature heroes prior to their Character Development by focusing on an entirely different cast with an original plot instead. The game characters that do appear, are relegated to supporting roles and some too-on-the-nose Foreshadowing turned out to be Red Herring to keep the readers on their toes. In the end, the comics share the same setting and hit the required important plot points, but end standing completely on their own, with only a passing knowledge of the game required.

Bionicle 2: Legends of Metru Nui and Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows take place before the first Direct-to-VideoBIONICLE movie Mask of Light, detailing the struggles of the Toa Metru/Hordika before they became the Turaga of Mata Nui and how the Matoran of Metru Nui ended up on the island of Mata Nui in the first place.

Minions reveals before they served Gru by the time of Despicable Me, the minions served Scarlet Overkill.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is generally considered a prequel of Batman: The Animated Series as it tells the story of how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman. Whether the parts of the movie set in "present" are before, after or during the events of the show is open to fans' interpretation.

The Lion King 1½ is partially a prequel, as it tells a bit of backstory about Timon and Pumbaa, as well as how they met.

Films — Live-Action

The Godfather Part II is at once a prequel and a sequel to the original film, jumping back and forth between the young Vito at the turn of the century and Michael in the '50s.

The entire second trilogy provides the backstory for Anakin Skywalker's fall to the Dark Side and the formation of the Galactic Empire. Some viewers objected to the way the series has Anakin interact with characters he does not seem to recognize later in the original trilogy. The Expanded Universe attempts to retcon some of the discrepancies away.

This despite the fact that Anakin/Vader was in the same scene in both trilogies with only a handful of characters. To wit, Palpatine, Obi Wan, Boba Fett (using a very generous definition of "with"), Tarkin and C3P0. In each case except the last, he does recognize them, with C3P0, well when they meet in Empire Strikes Back, Vader was kind of preoccupied.

The Prequels also show a far more advanced galaxy than the Original trilogy, despite it being over two decades earlier. Justified to an extent as most of the Original trilogy takes place in the galactic boondocks or on Naval Ships while the Prequels are set in the main part of the galaxy. OTH, George Lucas says that was deliberate, as the prequels were a more "civilized age".

Rogue One is another prequel of A New Hope, ending very shortly (possibly minutes) before the first movie kicks off.

The Tsui Hark movie A Better Tomorrow III was the prequel to the two John Woo movies that would kick off the Heroic Bloodshed genre. It follows Chow Yun-Fat's Mark Gor as he goes to Saigon, falls in love, and develops into the gunslinging badass that we know from A Better Tomorrow. And no, he does not keep the girl.

The Scorpion King is supposed to be a prequel to The Mummy Returns, although the fact that there is nothing to indicate that Mathias will turn evil appears to break that connection. However, Word of God is that the Scorpion King featured in The Mummy Returns is actually Mathias's Identical Grandson. It is probably more of a spin-off than a true prequel.

The Direct-to-Video film The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior is a prequel to The Scorpion King, making it a prequel to a prequel.

Most people would be surprised if you pointed out that The Muppet Movie was actually a prequel to The Muppet Show. Unless they've actually seen them. of course, since it's blindingly obvious that many of the various characters who are friends or at least co-workers of long standing on Show are meeting for the first time in Movie.

Both X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: First Class serve as prequels to the original X-Men Film Series trilogy. X-Men: Days of Future Past, meanwhile, is an odd example in that it is both a prequel and a sequel to the original trilogy, concluding with a Cosmic Retcon that deletes the entire trilogy, and probably Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine also, from the timeline. That means its sequel, X-Men: Apocalypse, while still taking place years before the original trilogy, isn't a prequel anymore (if one wants to nitpick very much, it is still technically a prequel, since the ending of Days features the aforementioned retconned timeline set during the original trilogy's time period.

More like a Continuity Reboot. The third, fourth and fifth films of the original series were Prequels to the first two, however; the third qualifies as both a Prequel (from the Verse's point of view) and a Sequel (from that of the ape characters).

Cube Zero is a prequel to the original Cube. The main character suffers the same fate as Kazan from the original, but since they couldn't get the original actor they're only vaguely implied to be the same person. The continuity in this series is already marginal at best due to having different creators for each entry who all had different ideas on what the mythology should be.

The original Japanese adaptation of The Ring has a prequel in Ring 0: Birthday, an Origins Episode set 30 years prior. The prequel is adapted from a short story of an omnibus novel that among other things includes a plain sequel and an Interquel.

This is further complicated by the fact that the prequels assume that the reader is reading the books in the published order. The Magician's Nephew, for example, is the first novel (chronologically speaking, but the 6th in the publishing order), but unless one has read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (the 2nd novel chronologically speaking), one can miss a lot of the subtext and the deeper meanings worked into the novel.

While the author and most experts agree that you should read them in order of release rather than chronology, the publisher continues to insist on numbering them in chronological order, further confusing new readers.

Complicating matters is the fact that the events of Book 5 are in fact taking place during the final chapter of Book 1.

When Jennifer Fallon was writing the prequels to her Demon Child series, she had a large board labelled "These People Must Die" next to her desk, indicating characters she had to kill off before the end of the prequel series in order to avoid having to explain their absence in the original series.

The Divergent trilogy is followed by four Four-centric short stories, three of which focus on him as a Dauntless initiate, 2 years before the events of the main series (the other is a P.O.V. Sequel of the first book). All were later collected in the Four: A Divergent Collection omnibus.

Dragons of Requiem has the Dawn of Dragons trilogy, which was released three years after the original trilogy. It takes place three thousand years before Song of Dragons and shows who founded and built Requiem, and how the Vir Requis united as a whole.

The Dresden Files: Brief Cases has "A Fistful of Warlocks", detailing Anastasia Luccio's pursuit of a warlock in the Wild West in the late 19th century. It also features a guest appearance by the necromancer Heinrich Kemmler, who is very, very dead in the series' present.

Fate/Zero is a series of novels that detail the events leading up to famous Visual NovelFate/stay night. Considering the relatively short timespan between the two story-wise (ten years), much of the events in Zero had a significant impact on stay night.

During the 80s, Isaac Asimov wrote two prequels to Foundation. He also wrote two sequels that retroactively made much of his output into this (the Susan Calvin-verse Robot stories became connected to the Bailey novels, and the Bailey novels became connected to the Foundation novels). Then there is the Empire trilogy, where the last fairly unambiguously is a prequel to Foundation, while the first two are a bit more debatable (they are part of the setting — though only the first is followed up on later — but due to the serializing and when the early Asimov stories were remade into novels it is a bit hard to say whether Foundation is a sequel or Pebble in the Sky/The Stars, Like Dust are prequels).

Jack Campbell's The Genesis Fleet series is set in the same universe as his The Lost Fleet books, but centuries earlier, during the formation of The Alliance. In the Vanguard novel, the recent invention of the jump drive has rapidly sped up the expansion of humanity into the galaxy. However, Old Earth's influence is waning, and the once mighty Earth fleet is being decommissioned. Even the old colonies are no longer the beacon of civilization they once were. The new colonies must fend for themselves in the face of pirates, slavers, and hostile colonies. The novel is focused on a number of characters, two of which appear to be the ancestors of key characters from the main series: Lieutenant Robert Geary of the recently-settled Glenlyon (in fact, the colony isn't even named at the start of the book) and Sergeant Dominic Desjani (although he doesn't appear until about two thirds of the way into the book) of the slightly more established Kosatka. Glenlyon finds itself the target of an expansionist militant colony called Scatha and, with no defense forces to speak of, must figure out a way to survive, its leaders realizing that colonies in similar situations must band together for common protection.

Joanne Harris's The Gospel of Loki serves as a prequel to her earlier fantasy novels Runemarks and Runelight. However, as a lifelong Norse Mythology fan, Harris likely worked out the basic plot of Gospel long before writing the other two books, much as Tolkien did with The Silmarillion and the hobbit books.

Several Halo novels serve as this, including Halo: The Fall of Reach and Halo: Contact Harvest; the former focuses on the SPARTAN-II program, while the latter focuses on Sergeant Johnson and first contact with the Covenant. Another example is the The Forerunner Saga trilogy, a distant prequel that takes place during the time of the Forerunners.

Horatio Hornblower: The first book published, The Happy Return (Beat to Quarters in some regions) was intended as a stand-alone novel, but later became part of a multi-book arc (Ship of the Line, Flying Colours, The Commodore and Lord Hornblower). Hornblower and the Atropos, Hornblower and the Hotspur, Lieutenant Hornblower and Midshipman Hornblower, as well as the short stories The Hand of Destiny and Hornblower and the Widow McCool all take place before the events of The Happy Return.

Dragon's Oath, about Dragon's past and his relationship with Anastasia.

Lenobia's Vow, about Lenobia's past.

Neferet's Curse, which relates Neferet's past.

The Kharkanas Trilogy is a prequel to the Malazan Book of the Fallen, set in The Time of Myths and telling an important part of the setting's backstory. It originally seemed like there was no need for a prequel as the backstory is covered quite extensively in the main series, however it turns out that a few millennia of time can change what actually happened into myths hardly related to the truth anymore. So even knowing how events eventually play out, how things ended up the way they did is a wholly different matter, sometimes overturning supposedly known facts without actually contradicting them.

Before Narnia there were James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, published in this order: 4, 2, 5, 3, 1.

Dances on the Snow takes place about a century prior to the events of Genome, the first novel of the series. However, the author insists that Genome should still be read first, even though the novels target completely different issues (Designer Babies in Genome, Cloning Blues in Dances on the Snow) and don't feature any of the same characters (except for one mentioned off-hand).

Lukyanenko's short story Shadows of Dreams is a prequel to Line of Delirium, as it describes one of Arthur's previous failed attempts to get to Grail with a teenage girl as his bodyguard. The latter is not revealed until the end of the short story, though.

By the same token, Mass Effect: Revelation is a prequel to the first Mass Effect game, revealing the history between Captain Anderson and Saren, as well as how Saren found Sovereign.

The Kill Order and The Fever Code are both prequels to the main trilogy of The Maze Runner series, taking focus to the background story and lore. The former tells the story of the first outbreak of the Zombie Apocalypse approximately a decade before the events at the Glade, while the latter is a direct prequel to the first book.

The Mortal Instruments series has one completed prequel series (The Infernal Devices) and one still in development (The Last Hours), both being set more than a century before the events of the main series. Plus, some of the novella collections (particularly, The Bane Chronicles) have stories predating TMI, as well.

Most of Anthony Price's thriller novels form a sequence set in the present day (i.e. the 1970s and '80s, contemporary with when they were written), but four of them are prequels set in the 1940s and '50s, exploring the roots of the main sequence protaonists and the organisation they work for.

Red Rabbit takes a step back to the very start of Jack Ryan, Sr's involvement with the US government, though was published after Executive Orders.

In John Masefield's Sard Harker, the protagonist's backstory includes him having once played a small but important role in a rebellion in South America. Masefield's later novel Odtaa is set during the rebellion.

First King of Shannara is the prequel to The Sword of Shannara Trilogy. It was written decades after that series was published. Even the trilogy's sequel series (The Heritage of Shannara) had been published before the First King of Shannara came out. As with the Narnia novels, it's best to actually read the Sword of Shannara and perhaps even the Heritage of Shannara novels before reading the prequel, as it assumes knowledge and therefore acts as a spoiler to the original novels (The Sword of Shannara especially).

Especially true because Tolkien didn't actually write The Silmarillion ... he wrote a lot of background material for LOTR, in many drafts and revisions, and then used tiny fragments of them in LOTR to suggest that it had its own tales and legends. After he died his son pieced together a mostly-consistent narrative out of the background material and published it. Then he started publishing the Unfinished Tales series, which were various drafts of stuff that didn't get used in The Silmarillion (many of these being earlier drafts of pieces that did get used; confused yet?).

The Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas of are set hundred years before the main series. They portray the golden age of House Targaryen and feature many "legendary" characters from the main series, and links between the books have surfaced, including the Myth Arc relating to "The Prince That Was Promised" and the revelation in A Dance with Dragonsof Lord Bloodraven, a supporting character in the earlier series alive in the present.

Archmaester Gyldayn's Histories are another series of novellas going back even further to a Civil War known as the Dance of the Dragons that took place 70 years before Dunk and Egg and 170 years before the main series. The Rogue Prince takes place before The Princess and the Queen, making it a prequel of a prequel.

Third Maccabees from the apocryphal books of the Maccabees is an In Name Only prequel story, as it has nothing to do with Judah Maccabee or The Maccabean Revolt, but rather an early persecution of the Jews that took place in the 3rd Century BC.

Wolfram von Eschenbach's unfinished epic poem Titurel was a prequel to his Parzival.

Tortall Universe: The Beka Cooper trilogy is set nearly 200 years before the rest of the series, and features main protagonist Beka Cooper, who's the ancestor of other characters George and Aly. While the main plot is very much self-contained, it does show a bit about how Tortall came to be the way it is, including the outlawing of slavery and the decline of the female knights.

New Spring is a prequel to The Wheel of Time series, taking place about 20 years before The Eye of the World. What's particularly jarring is that it's actually a lot better written than the previous few books.

The Dirty Harry parody TV series Sledge Hammer! ended its first season by blowing up Los Angeles, since the producers were expecting the series be canceled. When, much to their surprise, the series was picked up for a second season, they had to set it five years before the finale and called it Sledge Hammer: The Early Years.

Caprica is a rare example of a prequel TV series (to Battlestar Galactica). The prequel is so far separated in time (it begins 58 years before BSG) that only one character, William Adama, is shared between them—and while he was unquestionably the male lead in BSG, he's a secondary (if important) character in Caprica (and the vast time difference makes things, if anything, more interesting: How does he go from Willie Adama, gangster-in-training, to William "The Old Man" Adama, hardened officer of the Colonial Fleet?)

He doesn't. He dies, and his father has another son with his second wife whom they name William. He is the one who will become "The Old Man".

Rock and Chips (originally announced as Sex, Drugs & Rock 'n' Chips), a prequel to Only Fools and Horses which is set in 1960, and tells the story of Joan and Freddie the Frog. It's a bit of a Genre Shift, being a rather downbeat drama with some laughs rather than the traditional sitcom of the original (and The Green Green Grass).

There's a very popular, long-running Italian police-detective show, Inspector Montalbano. In 2012, the spinoff Young Montalbano appeared alongside it, about Montalbano as a young man.

Inspector Morse has spawned the prequel series Endeavour, about the young Morse (as well as a sequel series, Lewis, starring Morse's sergeant/sidekick). This allows more stories about Morse on TV, even though both the character and the actor have died.

Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad and focuses on the life of Amoral Attorney Saul Goodman seven years before he first met Walter White. At the time Saul still goes by his birth name of Jimmy McGill and has yet to have his Start of Darkness that would make him such a key player in the Heisenberg saga. Similarly, Mike Ehrmantraut has just arrived in Albuquerque and has yet to embark on his career as a criminal fixer.

Smallville and Gotham are prequels of the Superman and Batman mythos respectively.

Krypton is another prequel to the Superman mythos. The series takes place on the titular planet 200 years before its destruction and Kal-El's arrival on Earth. The protagonist is his grandfather Seg-El.

The mini-series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena is the prequel of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, sadly made because the main actor suffered from cancer (that eventually caused his death) and therefore the producers have to made something without him to entertain the audience in the hopes he would recover. He didn't so they went for The Other Darrin route.

Black Sails is a prequel to Treasure Island. It shows how Captain Flint got the Urca gold and why he put it on Treasure Island. It also provides backstory for various characters from the book, including Long John Silver, Billy Bones, Israel Hands and Ben Gunn.

Prime Suspect 1973 is a prequel to Prime Suspect, about WPC Jane Tennison at the beginning of her career dealing with even more sexism than she will as DCI Jane Tennison.

The 1986 TV film Dallas: The Early Years is a prequel to Dallas which explores the origins of the Barnes-Ewing feud in the 1930s. The Framing Device takes place in 1951 and features J.R. as a teenager and Bobby, Cliff, Pam and Gary as young children.

The 1998 TV film Babylon 5: In the Beginning is a prequel to Babylon 5, which depicts the Earth-Minbari War (2245-2248), a major part of the series' backstory. Its storyline explores the involvement, direct and indirect, of numerous regular characters in the war, including Sheridan, Sinclair, Delenn, Londo, G'Kar, Franklin and Ivanova. The major exception is Garibaldi, who was said to have served as a Ground Pounder (GROPO) during the war in "The Long Dark". The Framing Device, which ties into the future sequences of "War Without End Part 2" featuring a devastated Centauri Prime, takes place in 2278. It involves the elderly Londo, the Emperor of the Centauri Republic, telling two young children and their nanny of humanity's heroism during the Earth-Minbari War and how it inspired the Babylon Project, the last, best hope for peace. The film ties into several other episodes as well such as "And the Sky, Full of Stars", "A Late Delivery from Avalon" and "Atonement".

The Legend of the Five Rings CCG featured two prequel sets: Scorpion Clan Coup, about the events that set the Clan War in motion, and Dawn of the Empire, which finally put the legendary gods and heroes of Rokugan's founding into CCG form.

William Shakespeare did it too. The second history tetralogy (Richard II, Henry IV (1&2), and Henry V) were prequels to the first history tetralogy (Henry VI (1,2&3) and Richard III). And even those probably weren't written in order either; Henry VI 2, 3, and Richard III are almost one long play in three parts, the first part of Henry VI may well have been written a few years later.

Cirque du Soleil's Toruk  The First Flight is the prequel to Avatar, retelling the story of the first Toruk Makto (an individual who manages to tame and ride a toruk in a time of great peril for the Na'vi) in the 9th century BC. The Tree of Souls is threatened by a volcanic eruption, and the Omaticaya clan sends a brave young hunter to gather the five items he needs in order to tame the toruk and and use the creature as a symbol to unite the clans and save the Tree. The hunter, Ralu, fails, but his friend Entu, a failed hunter, succeeds. The clans manage to rally even without the Toruk Makto, but their efforts to save the tree prove futile. Then Entu appears on the back of the toruk, and the creature manages to put out the flames, dying during the act. The Storyteller then reveals that he is Entu. There is some discontinuity there, as the Storyteller appears to be telling all this to the Sky People (i.e. humans), except humans didn't make it to Pandora until the 22nd century. It's highly doubtful that Entu has lived for so long.

In Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis the main villain is a Soviet general called Guba, and one of the protagonists is a US special forces soldier by the name of Gastovski. The expansion pack Resistance features a new campaign set three years earlier, in which then-colonel Guba leads the Soviet invasion of a different island than those featured in the original game, and Gastovski is there to lend the locals a hand. Naturally, there are zero references to this earlier armed conflict in the original game.

Skyward Sword is chronologically the first game in the series, serving as an origin story for the Master Sword, the Kingdom of Hyrule, and even why evil is always able to rear its ugly head again and again, particularly with regards to Ganon's inability to stay fully dead.

The Minish Cap, chronologically the second game in the series, is the prequel to the Four Swordstrilogy, explaining the origins of both the Four Swords and Vaati.

Tales of Symphonia takes place thousands of years before Tales of Phantasia, the game it precedes, and this is only known through references in the game, rather than being explicitly stated... such as the two worlds having the same names as the two moons of Aseria in Phantasia, the existence of Martel who guards a giant tree named Yggdrasill, the world maps in Symphonia being that of Phantasia split in two, Suzu and Sheena Fujibayashi, the Eternal Sword, discrimination against half-elves (although it's not as big a plot point in Phantasia as it was in Symphonia), Magitek flying machines (the Techbirds of Phantasia and the Rheairds of Symphonia have very similar designs, and in both games powering them up involves gaining the aid of the lightning summon spirit Volt).

In Dragon Quest III, you play what appears to be a standalone game in the series, only towards the end you end up in an alternate universe — the universe of the first 2 Dragon Quest games. Only it's hundreds of years before Dragon Quest I. At the end of the game, your hero is given the title of Loto (Erdrick in the original US translation) — which is the name of the legendary hero that the Dragon Quest I character is descended from...

The second trilogy (IV, V, and VI) also appear to follow this format, though much more ambiguously.

IV could substitute II in the chronology, since thanks to the RetCons, it adds virtually nothing to the chronology.

Most media associated with Final Fantasy VII (also known as the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII) take place before the titular game. In fact, the franchise only has one video game sequel, Dirge of Cerberus, which is set a few years after the ending of the game.

Crisis Core is set four years before VII and explores about an important Posthumous Character who influenced that game's main protagonist. The ending even outright sequences into the opening of VII.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy gets Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy, which takes place on the previous iteration of the "Groundhog Day" Loop. Also, the series is technically a prequel to the first Final Fantasy I, as the game's setting is revealed to be a copy of that game's world ("World B", as opposed to "World A"). The ending shows the Warrior of Light setting up for another adventure in World A (the first game's storyline), with other heroes returning back to their own homeworlds.

Kingdom Hearts χ not only takes place long before every other game, including Birth by Sleep, but immediately before the Keyblade War which made the universe the way it is throught the rest of the series.

Devil May Cry 3 is a prequel to the first Devil May Cry game. 4 is technically a prequel too, as it still takes place before the second. In in-universe chronological order, the games go 3, 1, 4, 2 - and they've been going out of their way to deny 2 ever happened.

Ninja Theory's reboot of the series is rumored to be set before 3, if it takes place in the same continuity at all.

Castlevania had its first game set in 1691, but there have been games set before this time. And a shitload of sequels/interquels. So much so that the main climax isn't even a game yet!

By that same token, Assassin's Creed: Rogue could also be considered a prequel of Assassin's Creed III, since the events deal with the fall of the New World Assassins some time before Connor meets Achilles.

The mod/scenario Fall from Heaven: Age of Ice, included in Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword, is a prequel to the popular mod Fall From Heaven II. The original mod is set in the fantasy world of Erebus at the start of the Age of Rebirth. The prequel scenario shows how the previous age (the Age of Ice) was ended by a hero unifying a scattered tribe and vanquishing a god.

The Tale Of ALLTYNEX brings us RefleX (2008), which is a prequel to KAMUI (1999). RefleX in turn is preceded by ALLTYNEX Second (2010). Amusingly, the latter two games in the series are remakes of existing games: Reflection (1998) and ALLTYNEX (1996), meaning that retroactively, the series was still released in straight chronological order.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is a stealth prequel, thus explaining why Phone Guy is alive and the restaurant is still running. It actually takes place shortly before "The Bite of 1987".

Five Nights at Freddy's 4 is either this or a P.O.V. Sequel to 2. If it's the former, it reveals that there was also a "Bite of 1983." If it's the latter, then it shows a child who is scared of Freddy and friends who ultimately becomes the Bite of 1987 victim.

Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, thanks to a certain secret ending from the game's update, is implied to be a prequel, though just what it is a prequel to is hard to pinpoint. Basically, the game is designed as such that it could be placed at any point in the timeline. For a full answer: it might be an Origins Episode for the main antagonist and thus take place before the events of other games in the series, it might happen sometime in between 4 and 3 and explain about the antagonist's previously unmentioned son (though there's no stopping for the son to appear before 4 either), or it might be unconnected to any game thus far, because the antagonist's name is not fully confirmed to be his canonical name (it was previously revealed in a non-canon spinoff novel).

One of the endings of House of the Dead 4 sets up the game as a prequel to House Of The Dead 3. It gets this in your face by telling you to go back and play House Of The Dead 3 after you managed to get said ending.

Meanwhile, Overkill is set before any other game in the series, identifiable because Agent G is introduced as being sent on his first assignment here.

Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, rather than simply being remakes of the original Ruby and Sapphire, add new plot points touching upon the origin of Mega Evolution and the war in Kalos 3,000 years before the start of the series, tying them into Pokémon X and Y. According to Word of God, the former two take place an unspecified amount of time before the latter two.

The Stinger in the ending for Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker reveals that the game actually takes place before Super Mario 3D World, as Captain Toad winds up in 3D World's opening cutscene. Captain Toad follows Mario and crew down the clear pipe, which also explains how he wound up in the Sprixie Kingdom in said game.

While most sequels in the Silent Hill series are standalone, the first game has a prequel in the form of Origins that focuses on a new protagonist who is nevertheless involved with the characters of 1.

Gradius ReBirth (2009) is this to Nemesis 2 (1987), featuring Dr. Venom as James Burton's commanding officer before the former went rogue. Completing the third and final loop of the game exposes Venom's coup d'etat and FaceHeel Turn, setting up the events of Nemesis 2.

Professor Layton: The second trilogy of games take place before the first, telling how, among other things, Layton met his assistant Luke.

In a way, Hivebent is one for Homestuck, revolving around the trolls' session without any input from the kids. Of course, it's later revealed that without the kids, their entire session couldn't have happened.

The Order of the Stick has had two print-only books. The first, numbered 0, is On The Origin of PCs, which shows what the heroes were doing before joining together. The second, #-1, is Start of Darkness, which shows the backstory and origins of Team Evil leaders Xykon and Redcloak, along with how the Monster in the Dark ended up as their secret weapon.

Prequel, the aforementioned Elder Scrolls fan webcomic, is is one for Oblivion.

Western Animation

The '90s cartoon short Another Froggy Evening appeared to be a prequel for most of the cartoon, where Michigan J. Frog appears in earlier time periods and meets characters who resemble the man who discovered him in the original short, but this is subverted in the Twist Ending: Michigan eventually reaches a desert island, and the castaway that sees him thinks of him as food rather than a chance to exploit him for fame. Just before the frog was put in a cooking pot, however, he was then abducted by Marvin the Martian. It turns out, happily, that Michigan's croaks are considered Martian, and Marvin and Michigan end it off with a duet.

Parodied in Earthworm Jim, with a "promo" of Young Earthworm Jim which would feature Jim's many "adventures" before the suit came about.

Recess: All Growed Down was released in 2003 (two years after the show was cancelled), but features T.J. and his friends as kindergarteners, rather than fourth (or fifth) graders.

All Hail King Julien serves as a prequel to the Madagascar franchise, as it explains how King Julien became king in the first episode, and is otherwise set chronologically before the first movie.

Disney's animated series Hercules is a prequel to the Disney movie of the same name, showing Hercules during his teen-age years.

The Alf animated series is a prequel to Alf showing Alf's life on Melmac.

In the case of Star Wars, long before the prequels that we all know, the animated shows Droids and Ewoks were prequels of the original trilogy. The first told the story of C3PO and R2D2 before they met Luke and the second one told the lives of the Ewoks before their first encounter with humans.

Considering that Taz-Mania shows Taz still living in Tazmania and in his parent's house probably in his late teens/early twenties, then the show can be considered a prequel of the Looney Tunes cartoons.

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